{"id":29352,"date":"2024-08-14T09:38:56","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T16:38:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3rdactmagazine.com\/?p=29352"},"modified":"2024-08-16T09:09:07","modified_gmt":"2024-08-16T16:09:07","slug":"diana-nyad-and-bonnie-stoll-want-to-take-you-for-a-walk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/3rdactmagazine.com\/diana-nyad-and-bonnie-stoll-want-to-take-you-for-a-walk\/wellness\/fitness-exercise\/","title":{"rendered":"Diana Nyad and Bonnie Stoll Want to Take You for a Walk"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ann Hedreen<\/strong><\/h3>\n

When marathon swimmer Diana Nyad was 64 years old, she stood up and walked on her own two feet onto Smathers Beach in Key West, Florida, after swimming 110.86 miles from Cuba in 52 hours and 54 minutes. She had first attempted the crossing from Cuba to Florida 35 years earlier, three years after astonishing New Yorkers and the world by swimming around Manhattan. Nyad sped through the 28-mile New York swim in a mere seven hours and 57 minutes. The Cuba swim became the goal of a lifetime. It took her five tries\u2014in 1978, 2010, 2011, 2012, and then triumphantly in 2013\u2014to finally step out onto that Florida beach.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>\u201cThe epic Cuba swim touched my soul,\u201d wrote Nyad in her 2015 memoir, Find a Way. <\/em>\u201cThere is no other ocean crossing that would move me to dream again, to train like that again. Now it\u2019s my challenge to live that same fierce way out of the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Continuing to live with the fierceness it took to swim from Cuba to Florida is no puny task. For most of us, this kind of equation works the other way around\u2014we need a pep-talk and promises of treats to get us to step up and do the hard things in our lives. Sometimes we need to plead with ourselves just to get out of bed and seize the day. But all her life, Nyad has had the opposite problem. She is addicted to pushing herself, to setting the next challenge so that her steely will can get to work. I write this with admiration. Because what\u2019s astounding about Nyad, who is now 75, is that her new goal has nothing to do with surpassing the records she\u2019s already set in the water. It has to do with walking on dry land. And it\u2019s not just about her. She wants to get all <\/em>of us walking so that we can connect with this planet in a way even more primordial than swimming. Walking.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We humans \u201chave been walkers extraordinaire until now,\u201d says Nyad, in a recent lively Zoom interview. \u201cUntil the car came,\u201d and changed everything, including our bodies in this country more than any other. \u201cLet\u2019s get back to what human beings are built for, which is walking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWe are all from one place,\u201d adds Nyad\u2019s longtime trainer and best friend, Bonnie Stoll. \u201cThe only thing that differentiated us was that we all walked out of Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Their new venture, called EverWalk<\/em><\/a>, began to take shape \u201ca couple of weeks after the 2013 swim,\u201d Stoll recounts. \u201cWe were a group of 40 people and we all had such a sense of purpose. We all had the same goal\u2014getting the swimmer across\u2014and a couple weeks later Diana and I are sitting around and we said how can we get the world to feel some kind of purpose and be proud? Nobody really wants to go swimming daily. But walking is something everybody can do, unless you\u2019re wheeling in a wheelchair.\u201d And when we\u2019re walking, \u201cwe are looking at nature for every second. And maybe we are talking to people we haven\u2019t met before. And \u2026 walking is good for your heart, it\u2019s good for your soul, it is the best thing you could possibly be doing to stay in tune with your body and your mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThere are epiphanies that come when you\u2019re walking,\u201d says Nyad. \u201cWe handle our meetings for EverWalk<\/em> while walking. People are much more free. They\u2019re not looking at a screen and a wall. They\u2019re looking out and up and imagining everything they can be and everything they can do. So, I think that EverWalk<\/em> has really become what we felt in the ocean to some large degree.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now in its eighth year, EverWalk<\/em><\/a>\u2019s vision is to get the world walking, through offering online challenges and support and organizing and leading walks all over the U.S. \u201cOur community is very strong,\u201d says Nyad. \u201cWe chose the moniker EverWalk<\/em> because that word \u2018ever\u2019 is in there. Everybody, every age, everywhere, forever, for the rest of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though there are EverWalkers <\/em>of all ages, the virtual challenges and the in-person walks are especially popular with people over 55, because just about everybody \u201ccan walk as they get older,\u201d says Stoll, \u201cbut not everybody can play beach volleyball anymore.\u201d Stoll, who was a nationally ranked racquetball player in the 1980s, and is a renowned fitness coach, sends training manuals and offers tips to walkers who sign up for EverWalk<\/em> events and trips.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nyad and Stoll are currently in the limelight because of the 2023 movie, Nyad<\/em><\/a>, starring Annette Bening as Diana Nyad and Jodie Foster as Bonnie Stoll. If you haven\u2019t seen it, put it on your Netflix list. Foster and Bening are riveting, real and unglamorous. Stoll felt like she was watching her actual self. As Nyad put it, \u201cThis movie honors an unapologetically fierce personality who will not give up on her big dream, and a friendship of 45 years, of two athletes going after this thing together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nyad and Stoll both knew they were athletes from a very young age. Nyad grew up in Fort Lauderdale, with the Atlantic Ocean as her playground and the International Swimming Hall of Fame in the heart of town. From the age of 10, she was up at 4:30 in the morning and working out in the pool every day. Stoll grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, playing every sport she could get her hands on, especially if it involved a racket. Her mother liked to recall the moment she realized her daughter was an athlete\u2014when she saw her playing football, the lone girl on the field, with all the neighborhood boys.<\/p>\n

In their early days together, Nyad was Stoll\u2019s fitness coach, teaching her how to bring more strength and stamina to her game. For the Cuba swims, the roles were reversed. \u201cBonnie had had nothing to do with swimming, but she was the best coach I ever had. Because she was that athlete and because she knew me,\u201d says Nyad. \u201cWe need to research it, but we think we\u2019re the only pair of athletes who, 35 years later, switched roles. Coach went to athlete and athlete went to coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And now, both Stoll and Nyad are coaches. And they are ready to be your coach, if you\u2019re ready to get off the couch and start walking.<\/p>\n

Ann Hedreen<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>is an author <\/em>(Her Beautiful Brain<\/a>), teacher of memoir writing, and filmmaker.\u00a0Hedreen` and her husband, Rustin Thompson, own\u00a0<\/em>White Noise Productions<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0have mad<\/em>e more than 150 short films and several feature documentaries together, including\u00a0<\/em>Quick Brown Fox: An Alzheimer\u2019s Story.\u00a0She is currently at work on a book of essays and is<\/em> a regular contributor to <\/em>3rd Act Magazine, writing about topics including conscious aging, retirement, mindfulness, and health.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Read more about their Fall 2024 challenge at <\/em>EverWalk.com<\/em><\/a> . And watch for more news about upcoming in-person walks, including Martha\u2019s Vineyard in Fall 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

Running Down Boston<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n